Why is the Locative NP in Kiswahili not Syntactically Oblique?

Abstract

Kiswahili, a Bantu language, distinguishes between PPs, e.g. kutoka soko-ni 'Cl. 0 COP-a from market-Cl. 17/26, i.e. from market, lit. from in market' and NPs, e.g. m-pishi w-a soko-ni 'Cl. 1-cook Cl. 1 SM-COP-n of market-Cl. 17/26, i.e. market cook, lit. cook of in market.' According to one group of linguists, a syntactic oblique is an NP and/or argument introduced by a syntactic preposition (P). Thus sokoni 'market, in the market' above is oblique because it is introduced by a preposition (P): the adverbial P-a/COP-a or P kutoka 'from', or the nominal P-n/COP-n or P wa 'of', whose P-root is {a}. Another group of linguists states that every locative is a syntactic oblique in postverbal position, whether it is an NP or a PP. The study argues that the Kiswahili locative NP is not a syntactic oblique unless it is the complement in a PP. It is also known that a syntactic oblique is not the same as a lexical or inflectional oblique case in linguistics. We conclude that the use of a 'colonial reductionist hypothesis' to determine obliqueness in the Bantu languages, in the name of universal grammar, undermines efforts at highlighting the diversity between the languages of the world.